I feel risking with playing both Nehra and Ajith won't do good for India as both are recovering their injuries. With Balaji doing good in recent times and the amount of pace and bounce he gets it would be good to have an attack of Irfan, Balaji, Kumble and either Ajith or Nehra supported by sachin, sehwag and yuvraj. The batsmen especially Dravid and Laxman have to come good.
All the players played well especially Irfan Pathan, he has done an excellent sport and has got all the Indians attention towards him. May this trend continue and let us win the coming world cup. Insha Allah.
What I belive is that if India wishes to win the test series they should strategically think that they are leading and only thing they should do is to defend the following two test rather than going forward to win and do some silly mistakes which will turn the pointer upside down. I belive indian batting would be key role in these two tests. Pakistanis have made a wicket favourable to their bowler which would be really the plus point for them so India has to take care while playing.
Faisal seems to be getting overboard with stand-in captain Dravid's style of management while scoring needless points over Ganguly. While Dravid's deserves full credit for winning the Multan test, one has to recognize that Dravid led an already successful team with high morale that was largely built by Messrs. Ganguly and Wright. Besides, after terrific performances in Australia and Pakistan under his captaincy, Ganguly is perfectly entitled to building 'castles in the air' as long as he builds those castles.
Lastly Dravid could have avoided the unnecessary controversy depriving Tendulkar of hiswell deserved double century. India needs their real captain Ganguly back at the helm !
A prematch review of such an important game this is. One team is missing the services of their captian, one of the most successful indian captians ever. But there is no mention of this issue in this review or any other similar pre-match assessments. There were concerns about injuries to fast bowlers.. parthiv's keeping. lahore wicket.. but no mention about missing indian captain whatsoever. Saurav may want to make note of the situation. If he doesn't get back his form with the bat, even his place in the team is in danger. The team is doing so well at the moment. lets hope they keep up the good work and wish saurav recovers quick enough for the third match.
it was a well written article but it did leave a bitter taste. why are you going around comapring the captaincies of dravid and ganguly already? you know very well that this structure of the team has been built over the years under the able leadership of ganguly and dravid. so there is no sense in picking out their statements and pointing out differences in order to asses dravid's ability over ganguly's. now whether one person says that he wants to create history or not does not mean that one wants to win and the other doesnt. their intents are the same. they are both a part of team india and they do think alike when it comes to planning out the road to victory.
I, a novice in the glorious game of cricket, had always naively thought that a GOOD bowling attack means bowlers who can bowl with precision or rather incisiveness on any track under any conditions. now reading the comments from worthies like PCB CEO Ramiz Raja to Inzimam, I am not so sure. I am amazed by the modern advances in technology and waiting with interest to see how they produce a wicket that aids the FANTASTIC & LETHAL Pak attack while at the same time becoming docile when the WEAK Indian attack starts opersting. The same attack that on the UNHELPFUL Multan track bowled out Pak twice while all that the Pak bowlers could manage was 4 & a half (Yuvi) Indian wickets. Talk of Catch 22! Inzi wins the toss puts India in (as he has to) the dreaded Pak attack repeats it's performance, and India gets off to a flier. India wins the toss chooses to field, their attack in their turn repeat their performence, and Pak are reeling at the end of 1st session itself! Make believe ? I don't think so. Vivek
